Sundaze 1836

Hello,


Today's Artists  are an English experimental space rock band formed in Bristol in 1992 and led by songwriter David Pearce. Rachel Brook (now Rachel Coe) of Movietone was a member during the band's early incarnation, other musicians contributing to the group's recordings and life performances included Rocker (ex-the Flatmates), Matt Elliott (aka the Third Eye Foundation) and Sam Jones (of Crescent). There must be something about the landscape around Bristol, England, that incites its denizens to travel ever deeper inward in order to find inspiration for their art. Not at all dissimilar to the contemporaneous trip-hop scene that flourishes at its doorstep, they create a trance-like, decidedly cerebral sound — albeit without the vaguest insinuation of danceability. There's an eerie, elusive bliss in the collaborations between home-recording wizards Rachel Brook and David Pearce — kind of like an elongation of that sensorily unbound moment when wakefulness is about to give way to sleep .. .....N'Joy

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Pearce had previously been a member of Ha Ha Ha, releasing the Up and Down EP in 1985. He then formed Rosemary's Children, issuing the 1986 single "Southern Fields" and 1987 album Kings and Princes. While at art school in Farnham, he met other Bristol musicians and played through the early 1990s as a member of various groups including the Secret Garden, the Distance and Linda’s Strange Vacation. Flying Saucer Attack formed in 1992 as a loose collective centered on the core of Pearce and Brook, releasing their debut single, "Soaring High", in January 1993 on their own FSA label. Their second single, "Wish", followed that June. Both singles were issued as limited edition vinyl 7-inches in handmade packaging. Drawing on sources such as krautrock, folk and dream pop, the group referred to their DIY sound as "rural psychedelia" and were associated with bands of the contemporary post-rock and shoegazing scenes. FSA were able to create a small but enthusiastic fanbase, and were notable for recording most of their output at home, avoiding recording studios

The group's first studio album (self-titled, but sometimes called Rural Psychedelia as those words appeared on the cover) was released in 1993, and included a noisy cover of Suede's contemporary single "The Drowners", which provoked press interest in the record. Like the earlier singles, the album was released on FSA's own label by Heartbeat Productions, and was deliberately only made available on vinyl. The album was released in the United States by VHF Records in early 1994, on CD and vinyl – the CD bore the legend "compact discs are a major cause of the breakdown of society" (other releases would carry messages such as "keep vinyl alive", "home taping is reinventing music" and "less is more").

The band then signed to Domino Recording Company. The first release for the new label was Distance (October 1994), which collected the early singles and some unreleased material. It was released in the US by VHF. A contemporaneous non-album single, "Land Beyond the Sun", was Flying Saucer Attack's first release on US label Drag City, who issued it on 25 September 1994, followed by a Domino release the following month. A second studio album, Further, was released 17 April 1995 by Domino and Drag City. A cover of Wire's "Outdoor Miner" was released as a single that year. Another singles compilation followed, Chorus on 20 November 1995, including a sleeve note stating that "this album marks the end of FSA phase one". In 1995, Brook left the band to concentrate on Movietone.

A version of the folk song "Sally Free and Easy" was initially only released as a single on CD on 5 November 1996; the sleeve note explained that the pressing plant had been unable to cut it to vinyl (a US plant later achieved the feat by using a monaural master, and it was issued on 12" by Drag City). Full-length 1996 releases included In Search of Spaces, an album consisting of early 1994 live tracks (mainly unstructured noise, released by Bruce Russell's Corpus Hermeticum imprint), and Distant Station, an album with two long tracks constructed by fellow Domino act Tele:Funken from samples of the band.

The three-song "Goodbye" EP, released 21 January 1997 on VHF Records, was a mix of old and new material; the second track, recorded live in April 1995, featured New Zealand guitarist Roy Montgomery. New Lands, Flying Saucer Attack's third studio album, was released in October 1997. The band described it as "phase two", but it did not depart from the usual mixture of aggressive feedback and noise, and gentle folk-influenced melody. After New Lands and a final vinyl-only 7" single, "Coming Home", both issued in 1997, Pearce left Domino.

The "phase 2" version of Flying Saucer Attack accepted an invitation to participate in a tribute album to Moby Grape co-founder Skip Spence, who was dying of lung cancer. More Oar: A Tribute to the Skip Spence Album, featuring their cover of "Grey - Afro", was released by Birdman Records on 6 July 1999. Flying Saucer Attack's fourth studio album, Mirror, was released 17 January 2000 on FSA, effectively marking the end of the group for the next 15 years. Pearce subsequently collaborated with Jessica Bailiff under the name Clear Horizon; the duo released an eponymous album on Kranky in 2003.

The only new material released by the band during their sabbatical came in 2008, when Flying Saucer Attack participated in a two-disc Fire Records compilation setting all 36 poems from James Joyce's 1907 Chamber Music poetry collection to music by contemporary alternative acts. After a 15-year hiatus, Flying Saucer Attack released a new album, Instrumentals 2015, on 17 July 2015.

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Seemingly emerging out of nowhere following an initial single or two, Flying Saucer Attack's debut album crystallized an incipient 1990s underground as in thrall to folk music as to feedback blasts and Krautrock influences. The description the band members themselves used, also considered by some as an alternate title to this album, was "rural psychedelia," and rarely has form so readily followed function. The original duo of Pearce and Brook, with some help from friend/Third Eye Foundation mainman Matt Elliott on percussion and clarinet (thus creating an even more alien atmosphere on "Moonset"), created a thick, evocatively haunting collection of modern mind-blowers. If any one thing could be singled out about the album, it's the continual contrast between Pearce's soft, reflective singing, often sunk deep into the overall mix and treated with heavy-duty echo, and his often tremendous guitar work, electric squalls, and drones piled atop one another. Songs like the exultant "Wish" and "A Silent Tide" are the breathtaking results. Initial comparisons were made to My Bloody Valentine and the shoegazing crowd, but they're misplaced -- it's a consciously different style employing some similar elements, but with notably varying results. Two astonishing drone/tribal instrumentals are named "Popol Vuh 2" and "Popol Vuh 1," both open tips of the hat to the long-lived German experimental group. The completely out-of-left-field number, though, is the cover of Suede's "The Drowners" -- changing nothing about the pace but overdriving the feedback and relentlessly toning down the vocals, FSA turn the neo-glam piece into a noisefest beyond description. Compared to later albums, Flying Saucer Attack sets more of an immediately consistent mood -- some numbers aside, the dreamy singing, the seemingly straightforward guitar parts that get more involved the more one listens, and more continue from track to track, generally speaking. The end results, though, are more than worth it.

Flying Saucer Attack - Flying Saucer Attack (flac  325mb)

01 My Dreaming Hill 6:12
02 A Silent Tide 3:48
03 Moonset 4:25
04 Make Me Dream 4:25
05 Wish 5:23
06 Popol Vuh 2 5:00
07 The Drowners 4:34
08 Still 1:50
09 Popol Vuh 1 10:18
10 The Season Is Ours 4:18

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Not waiting long to do so, Flying Saucer Attack followed up its full-length debut with a singles collection -- understandable, given how fond the band was from the start for releasing 7" vinyl as part of its modus operandi (nearly every FSA release has a pro-vinyl statement somewhere in the artwork). Described by Pearce in the liner notes as "the second FSA album but not album number two," Distance hangs together quite as well as the debut album, exploring various sides of the band's noted "rural psychedelia" approach. Two tracks, "Oceans 2" and "November Mist," were previously unreleased; otherwise, the remaining selections come from FSA's first three singles. "Oceans" itself makes for a lovely start, with Matt Elliott of the Third Eye Foundation adding rolling tribal percussion gently beneath an ever-evolving web of open-ended electric guitar and Brook's subtle bass. It calls to mind a dreamier take of Ash Ra Tempel's early days and stands up well in comparison. Another guest appearance is the semi-mysterious Rocker, a longtime collaborator of Pearce and company, who adds his computer -- with no indication as to what it does -- on the heavy electronic screams and mechanistic rhythms of the title track. One song from the self-titled debut also released as a single, "Wish," appears here as "Instrumental Wish" and lives up to the name, a truly beautiful combination of low drones, rolling feedback rhythms, and more echoing off into the beyond. Most of the tracks continue the established FSA approach, with Pearce's sometimes barely audible vocals coming across almost as wordless sighs through the thick but somehow never overbearing guitar crunches and riffs. On "November Mist" and "Soaring High," the folk influence in FSA comes through the clearest, the latter living up to the title on a beautiful post-Byrds guitar chime then treated with FSA's own brand of avant-garde lo-fi production.
.

Flying Saucer Attack - Distance  (flac 257mb)

01 Oceans 5:16
02 Standing Stone 3:48
03 Crystal Shade 4:56
04 Instrumental Wish 6:39
05 Distance 4:52
06 November Mist 4:58
07 Soaring High 4:19
08 Oceans 2 5:37

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Thanks to its release on Drag City and an increasingly higher profile (and rabid fan base), Further turned out to be FSA's breakthrough, at least in cult terms. Even Rolling Stone reviewed the album (amusingly pairing it with a modern Pink Floyd live release), but Further was anything but a corporate sellout. Rather, the twosome achieved a new balance of delicacy and power, heightened in noticeable part by Pearce's increasingly assertive singing. His vocal approach of extended sigh as singing hadn't changed, but his words had a new clarity and crisper delivery, with fine results. Otherwise, FSA stayed the same general course musically, but again the arrangements provide the difference, with the unplugged folk side of Pearce's music now firmly taking the fore on songs like the extended, multipart "For Silence," often with gentle reverb or extra studio effects that make the songs all that much more intriguing. It's not quite Bert Jantsch or John Fahey redux, but there's a definite sonic connection there that's well worth the hearing. Other highlights are the clear acoustic notes cutting through the hum and drone of the majestic "In the Light of Time" or the buried waves of electric guitar in counterpoint to the gentle picking on "Come and Close My Eyes" -- the latter accompanied at the end with what sounds like a typewriter, without sounding jarring or out of place. No compromises were aimed at radio-friendly unit shifters -- opening track "Rainstorm Blues," a roaring feedback squall ascending and descending in volume, got further accompaniment from hard-to-place crumbles and squeals, Brook's growling bass work setting the mood even stranger. Brook herself gets a lovely moment of vocal glory on "Still Point," her voice even more soft and restrained than Pearce's, rising through a striking squall of sound and, once again, upfront acoustic guitar.

Flying Saucer Attack - Further  (flac 304mb)

01 Rainstorm Blues 4:10
02 In The Light Of Time 4:48
03 Come And Close My Eyes 4:28
04 For Silence 7:39
05 Still Point 3:12
06 Here Am I 6:37
07 To The Shore 12:09
08 She Is The Daylight 4:14

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Recorded and released when Flying Saucer Attack was on its semi-hiatus around 1996, Distant Stations isn't actually an FSA album per se, but a collaborative remix project done by fellow U.K. experimental artist Tele:funken (real name Tom Fenn), named after a German company. Consisting of two sidelong (or on CD, simply long) dark ambient-themed songs, it seems to be something of a tribute to older FSA inspirations like Ash Ra Tempel, also fond of similarly lengthy and moody numbers. As a result, or maybe just as a sly nod to the rampant Krautrock and space rock worship of the mid-'90s in hipster indie circles, the liner notes warn, "Achtung! Diese Platte ist Moog-frei!" -- which may or may not be grammatically accurate, but still makes for a good in-joke. Tele:funken himself took a variety of samples and elements of FSA's work; no specific origin for any of the sounds is indicated but one collaborator is mentioned, Rosie Cuckston of Pram, who adds "toy sampler" on the first track. Tele:funken's remix work doesn't so much turn FSA into blissful relaxation as it increases the edgy, uneasy qualities, all while still being engagingly atmospheric. The first track, with its opening of stretched-out guitar feedback in rhythmic cycles, up and down, back and forth in the mix, is a particular gem, turning into a haunting haze of floating high-pitched tones before a relentless, low rhythmic burble combines with it to conclude the song. The second piece starts in the most low-volume and minimal way possible, with barely on-the-edge-of-hearing percussion and squiggly loops only just gaining in general intensity in the opening minutes. This then turns into an intriguingly open-ended combination of oscillating, constantly varying tones and feedback wails, distorted and pushed to the edge. Sonically, Distant Stations feels like a kissing cousin to Main's similarly extreme work -- not a bad situation to be in.

Combining the contents of two 7" vinyl singles into a CD EP release, Outdoor Miner/Psychic Dreaming makes for a fine slice of FSA's art circa 1995. The title track is the noteworthy Wire track, seemingly covered by countless numbers of bands during the '90s; FSA's own take reduces the vocals to a haunting whisper while unsurprisingly upping the feedback content. Changing nothing about the song's pace, the cover contains all the original's cryptic wistfulness with a new, shadowy power. The remaining three songs are all fine goodies, most notable of which is "Land Beyond the Sun," with a slow, softly epic reach to the lead melody and strikingly evocative singing and lyrics from Pearce. "Psychic Driving" contains a rough, distorted rhythm that sounds like it came from regular FSA collaborator Third Eye Foundation, or else is trying to sound like same, while "Everywhere Was Everything" makes for a lovely, high-volume melancholic closer.

Flying Saucer Attack - Distant Station (with Telefunken) (flac  417mb)

01 Distant Station (Part One) 25:21
02 Distant Station (Part Two) 28:10
bonus Outdoor Miner & Psychic Driving EP
03 Outdoor Miner 2:41
04 Psychic Driving 4:06
05 Land Beyond The Sun 5:23
06 Everywhere Was Everything 3:57

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx